Free I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale

her laugh. But all she did was cry that Miriam was a dead ghost and the devil had got her.
    I was frightened. She couldn’t hear me and I wassure she didn’t know who I was or even where she was. I lay her on the cushions and she just grabbed hold of a cushion and rocked backwards and forwards, crying.
    I ran. Knocked on the study door. Burst in. ‘Aunt Naomi … can you come? Please! I don’t know what to do.’
    Wonder of wonders, when she looked at Uncle Caleb for permission, he actually nodded. She stood up, a hand pressed into her back, and came with me to our bedroom. Maggie was exactly how I’d left her, face pressed into the cushion muffling the wailing.
    Aunt Naomi marched over to her, sat beside her. Grabbed her by the shoulders and wrenched her upright. Then she pulled back her arm and slapped Maggie hard on both cheeks.
    Maggie gasped but her eyes lost the blankness and she stopped crying. Her mouth open, she stared at her mother and her eyes swam back into focus. Aunt Naomi took a hanky from her apron pocket and wiped Maggie’s face. ‘That is better. Now let Esther help you get your clothes off and you can have a little rest. It has been a big day.’
    Maggie breathed in deeply, with only a few hiccups on the way. ‘Mother … I saw Miriam. She was a ghost.’
    Aunt Naomi reached for Maggie’s hands and held them firmly. ‘No, she was not a ghost. She does not want to live a Godly life any more andthat is why she left. She is dead to us, Magdalene. Do you understand?’
    Maggie said nothing, her eyes huge in her blotchy face.
    Aunt Naomi got up. ‘We will not speak of her again. Go to sleep now.’
    I undressed Maggie. Usually she insisted on doing everything herself, even to untying the wretched tapes on her skirt. Today she sat like a limp rag doll. I picked her up and dumped her on her bed. ‘Miriam gave me a message for you,’ I whispered. She turned her head and looked at me. ‘She said: “Tell her I miss her. Tell her I love her.”’
    ‘Why did she go away then?’ Maggie demanded, her voice wavering. ‘I hate her! She is mean and horrible.’
    She curled up in a ball, facing away from me. I rubbed her back. ‘And you want her back. Just like I want my mother back.’
    She twitched her shoulders but didn’t say anything. I kept on rubbing her back and shoulders and between one second and the next she went to sleep.
    I sat there, waiting until I heard them leave the study. When I went back to the family room, Aunt Naomi asked, ‘Is she asleep?’
    I nearly yelled, ‘A fat lot you care!’ It was only the thought of the discipline room that kept me quiet. Instead I nodded my head.
    Nobody said anything. Not about the shopping,or the picnic and definitely not about Miriam. But she was there in all their thoughts.
    That evening, after prayers and stuff, the twins sewed their verses and their mouths were clamped shut. Usually they chattered away about nothing. Abraham didn’t ‘accidently’ kick a door or a chair when he was sent to bed the way he normally did. Luke stayed close to him, his eyes on the floor. Daniel had a Bible in his lap but didn’t turn a page all evening. Aunt Naomi went to bed an hour earlier than usual. My uncle stayed in the study.
    I put down the skirt I was hemming and went and sat on the verandah. Mum, Miriam. The experiment. So many mysteries, so much sadness.
    It was a long time before I slept that night.

Five
    THE NEXT DAY AUNT NAOMI shook me awake, saying, ‘I want you to come to the Circle of Fellow ship today, Esther. You can meet Charity and Damaris. They will be starting school with you.’
    I’d been dreaming of Miriam. Just in time, I shut my mouth on telling my aunt. I yawned and rubbed my eyes, trying to stay in bed for a few extra seconds while looking like I was getting up.
    ‘Great,’ I muttered. ‘I’m really looking forward to that.’
    She didn’t say anything then, but I got an extra dose of chores, which was actually a lot better